Modelling Risk to US Military Populations from Stopping Blanket Mandatory Polio Vaccination

Objectives. Transmission of polio poses a threat to military forces when deploying to regions where such viruses are endemic. US-born soldiers generally enter service with immunity resulting from childhood immunization against polio; moreover, new recruits are routinely vaccinated with inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), supplemented based upon deployment circumstances. Given residual protection from childhood vaccination, risk-based vaccination may sufficiently protect troops from polio transmission. Methods. This analysis employed a mathematical system for polio transmission within military populations interacting with locals in a polio-endemic region to evaluate changes in vaccination policy. Results. Removal of blanket immunization had no effect on simulated polio incidence among deployed military populations when risk-based immunization was employed; however, when these individuals reintegrated with their base populations, risk of transmission to nondeployed personnel increased by 19%. In the absence of both blanket- and risk-based immunization, transmission to nondeployed populations increased by 25%. The overall number of new infections among nondeployed populations was negligible for both scenarios due to high childhood immunization rates, partial protection against transmission conferred by IPV, and low global disease incidence levels. Conclusion. Risk-based immunization driven by deployment to polio-endemic regions is sufficient to prevent transmission among both deployed and nondeployed US military populations

Negotiating the Pandemic

This book centers on negotiations around cultural, governmental, and individual constructions of COVID-19. It considers how the coronavirus pandemic has been negotiated in different cultures and countries, with the final part of the volume focusing on South Asia and Pakistan in particular. The chapters include auto-ethnographic accounts and ethnographic explorations that reflect upon experiences of living with the pandemic and its implications for all areas of life. The book explicates people’s dealings with COVID-19 at various levels, situates the spread of rumors, conspiracy theories, and new social rituals within micro- and/or macro-contexts, and describes the interplay between the virus and various institutionalized forms of inequalities and structural vulnerabilities. Bringing together a variety of perspectives, the volume relates to the past, describes the Covidian present, and offers futuristic implications. It enlists distinct imaginaries based on current understandings of an extraordinary challenge that holds significant importance for our human future

Negotiating the Pandemic

This book centers on negotiations around cultural, governmental, and individual constructions of COVID-19. It considers how the coronavirus pandemic has been negotiated in different cultures and countries, with the final part of the volume focusing on South Asia and Pakistan in particular. The chapters include auto-ethnographic accounts and ethnographic explorations that reflect upon experiences of living with the pandemic and its implications for all areas of life. The book explicates people’s dealings with COVID-19 at various levels, situates the spread of rumors, conspiracy theories, and new social rituals within micro- and/or macro-contexts, and describes the interplay between the virus and various institutionalized forms of inequalities and structural vulnerabilities. Bringing together a variety of perspectives, the volume relates to the past, describes the Covidian present, and offers futuristic implications. It enlists distinct imaginaries based on current understandings of an extraordinary challenge that holds significant importance for our human future

Animal Metropolis

Animal Metropolis brings a Canadian perspective to the growing field of animal history, ranging across species and cities, from the beavers who engineered Stanley Park to the carthorses who shaped the city of Montreal. Some essays consider animals as spectacle: orca captivity in Vancouver, polar bear tourism in Churchill, Manitoba, fish on display in the Dominion Fisheries Museum, and the racialized memory of Jumbo the elephant in St. Thomas, Ontario. Others examine the bodily intimacies of shared urban spaces: the regulation of rabid dogs in Banff, the maternal politics of pure milk in Hamilton and the circulation of tetanus bacilli from horse to human in Toronto. Another considers the marginalization of women in Canada’s animal welfare movement. The authors collectively push forward from a historiography that features nonhuman animals as objects within human-centered inquiries to a historiography that considers the eclectic contacts, exchanges, and cohabitation of human and nonhuman animals. With contributions by: Kristoffer Archibald, Jason Colby, George Colpitts, Joanna Dean, Carla Hustak, Darcy Ingram, Sean Kheraj, William Knight, Sherry Olson, Rachel Poliquin, and Christabelle Sethn

Mosquitopia

This edited volume brings together natural scientists, social scientists and humanists to assess if (or how) we may begin to coexist harmoniously with the mosquito. The mosquito is humanity’s deadliest animal, killing over a million people each year by transmitting malaria, yellow fever, Zika and several other diseases. Yet of the 3,500 species of mosquito on Earth, only a few dozen of them are really dangerous—so that the question arises as to whether humans and their mosquito foe can learn to live peacefully with one another. Chapters assess polarizing arguments for conserving and preserving mosquitoes, as well as for controlling and killing them, elaborating on possible consequences of both strategies. This book provides informed answers to the dual question: could we eliminate mosquitoes, and should we? Offering insights spanning the technical to the philosophical, this is the “go to” book for exploring humanity’s many relationships with the mosquito—which becomes a journey to finding better ways to inhabit the natural world. Mosquitopia will be of interest to anyone wanting to explore dependencies between human health and natural systems, while offering novel perspectives to health planners, medical experts, environmentalists and animal rights advocates

Black Liberty in Emergency

COVID-19 pandemic orders were weaponized by state and local governments in Black neighborhoods, often through violent acts of the police. This revealed an intersection of three centuries-old patterns— criminalizing Black movement, quarantining racial minorities in public health crises, and segregation. The geographic borders of the most restrictive pandemic order enforcement were nearly identical to the borders of highly segregated, historically Black neighborhoods. The right to free movement is fundamental and, as a rule, cannot be impeded by the state. But the jurisprudence around state power in public health emergencies, deriving from the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, has practically resulted in a public health exception to this general rule. Over the past twenty years, scholars have asserted that deference in this context, including denying due process and suspending judicial review, can lead courts to sustain gross violations of civil rights in emergencies. These scholars’ arguments gained traction amongst libertarians and the courts during the COVID-19 pandemic. But scholars and courts alike have failed to sufficiently center race as they update the law of quarantine, despite a four-hundred-year history of racialized quarantines. This Article seeks to render race visible in our understanding of the nature and scope of quarantines during public health emergencies. The Article makes the claim that COVID-19 pandemic orders and their enforcement schemes are genealogically related to a larger American project of racializing neighborhood borders and constricting Black movement. And it proposes the abolition of carceral responses to public health crises in Black communities, including quarantines, and the reconstruction of liberty to bring Black communities within the sphere of the state’s protection in future emergencies

Understanding vaccination refusal: a qualitative study of parents' health beliefs and practices

Vaccinations and immunisations have become one of the cornerstones of health promotion and preventive health care globally and they are firmly embedded within the bio-medical model of medicine. That there have been objectors to mass vaccination programmes from the very beginnings of its history is often forgotten. Objectors are often characterised as dissenters, as irresponsible and implicated in the failure of public health policy to prevent epidemics by interfering with herd immunity protection of the population. This thesis aims to explore the reasons why some people actively choose not to vaccinate their children and to examine their health beliefs and practices. Existing work with non-vaccinating parents has been dominated by quantitative and epidemiological studies attempting to determine why parents do not vaccinate or mixed method studies which also focus on lay perspectives; they aim to identify issues in order to help programmes to increase vaccination uptake. There is a shortage of studies focusing on the health beliefs of parents who make active decisions not to vaccinate in the context of those beliefs and health related practices. This study focuses on a small group of parents who have consciously decided not to have their children vaccinated for the common childhood illnesses and extends to those parents where travel vaccinations were also refused. Fifteen adults were studied, one was not a parent; in depth open ended interviews were conducted. The research process highlights both the level of trust between researcher and respondent and the experience of feeling marginalised and misunderstood for their beliefs. Both influence the data generated. The findings indicate that parents’ experience with healthcare practitioners varied enormously; from support and encouragement for their stance on vaccination to accusations of being a ‘bad parent’. In this study the respondents chose not to partake of the vaccination regime for their children because they believed that the vaccinations were either an unnecessary intervention, or, might do more harm than good. Some parents would never have any vaccination for themselves or their children in any circumstances as they did not agree with the principle at the outset. Others did not rule out all vaccinations in all circumstances, but kept an open mind. How people came to their points of view, who and what influenced them in their health beliefs and decision making varied and was complicated. Influences included the media, books, individual alternative health-care practitioners, parents, friends, the world wide web or some kind of ‘gut feeling’ that the practice was ‘wrong’, or a combination of some or all of these. There was no evidence for anti-vaccination pressure from any one organisation or person. Lack of faith, trust or belief in science as a health promoting body of knowledge was a significant aspect for some of the parents. Mistrust in the ethics of the pharmaceutical companies and their relationships with both the government and general practitioners made some of the parents mistrust their advice. Those parents who had a scientific background disagreed with the science of vaccinations. The conclusion highlights the difficult position people who do not believe in vaccination find themselves in and the role of health beliefs that are embedded in different understandings of what constitutes health-illness and how health can be maintained

Microbiology for Allied Health Students

This open textbook is a remix of Openstax Microbiology, CC-BY 4.0, and created through an Affordable Learning Georgia Round Six Textbook Transformation Grant. The textbook has the following supplemental materials within this repository: This is a collection of instructional materials for the following open textbook and lab manual: Microbiology for Allied Health Students Lab Manual Microbiology for Allied Health Students Instructional Materials Authors\u27 Description: Microbiology for Allied Health Students is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements for the single semester Microbiology course for non-majors and allied health students. The book presents the core concepts of microbiology with a focus on applications for careers in allied health. The pedagogical features of Microbiology for Allied Health Students make the material interesting and accessible to students while maintaining the career-application focus and scientific rigor inherent in the subject matter. The scope and sequence of Microbiology for Allied Health Students has been developed and vetted with input from numerous instructors at institutions across the U.S. It is designed to meet the needs of most microbiology courses allied health students. With these objectives in mind, the content of this textbook has been arranged in a logical progression from fundamental to more advanced concepts. The opening chapters present an overview of the discipline, with individual chapters focusing on cellular biology as well as each of the different types of microorganisms and the various means by which we can control and combat microbial growth. The focus turns to microbial pathogenicity, emphasizing how interactions between microbes and the human immune system contribute to human health and disease. The last several chapters of the text provide a survey of medical microbiology, presenting the characteristics of microbial diseases organized by body system. Accessible files with optical character recognition (OCR) and auto-tagging provided by the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation.https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/biology-textbooks/1015/thumbnail.jp